


Sleep Mode

by Ray_Writes



Series: Tumblr Prompts [23]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Post-Episode AU: s04e08-09 Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-18 16:18:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14216976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ray_Writes/pseuds/Ray_Writes
Summary: The recovery process is a long one.





	Sleep Mode

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this was a prompt from an anon on tumblr who asked me to write something after they return to the TARDIS at the end of the Library two-parter. This...got a little out of hand. At any rate, I've been working on it off and on for about a week and a half now, so I may as well let you all have a look at it. Please enjoy!

He knew it still was not alright, possibly wouldn’t be for a very long time, because of how quiet she was.

Not that Donna was loud all the time, of course. But even when her voice turned soft there was always an underlying strength, a  _ presence _ . This Donna, he could tell her mind was far away, reaching back for the Library datacore and Lee. Something twisted painfully in his gut, and he had no scientific explanation for it at all.

“I think I might turn in,” she said, just above a whisper, and he looked away from the door he’d just snapped closed. “Bit muddled on how long I’ve been awake.”

“Of course,” the Doctor immediately replied. “We’ll start fresh in the morning.”

She offered just the slightest attempt at a smile before turning away and heading down the corridor to her room. The Doctor watched her go, then went to the controls to place them in the Vortex. Time and space could wait as long as Donna needed it to.

—-

She came and found him after a much shorter interval than was usual whenever she decided to sleep. He didn’t comment, and merely took them somewhere new.

It worked a little. She had all sorts of questions like always, and he thought she even forgot once or twice what had happened only yesterday. And yet she was still too quiet. Withdrawn. 

By the second day she was yawning between bouts of running, and he knew it wasn’t because she was bored. Donna could gripe about the weather or the running better than anyone, but she never found their travels boring.

She was tired, and the longer it lasted the more he feared it would grow to mean she was tired of this. That he’d failed to shield her from the worst and she’d soon leave him like everyone eventually did.

Donna retreated to her room whenever they got back to the TARDIS. He thought to ask if she felt up to a movie or a game of some kind, something to draw her out, but his courage always failed him and he watched her walk away instead.

This particular night, after a few fruitless attempts at TARDIS maintenance that he was too distracted worrying to complete, the Doctor decided it was past time for him to sleep himself. Not that he was entirely eager to, and so he took a more roundabout route to his room.

He hadn’t realized his wandering had taken him past her room until he heard a door open behind him. “Spaceman?”

The Doctor spun about on his heels. “Oh, sorry, did I wake you?” It couldn’t possibly be time for her to wake up yet.

Donna grimaced. “I haven’t exactly been sleeping. I try, but it’s just...I don’t know. I’m not used to, um—”

“You can’t get to sleep on your own,” he finished for her.

“Yeah,” she admitted, eyes on her toes.

Neither of them spoke for an awful stretch of time.

“Do you think you could—no, it’s daft, forget I asked.”

He reached for her hand before she could retreat behind the door.

“Donna, whatever you need, I’m here.”

She visibly struggled for a moment before finally opening the door a little wider.

He’d had glimpses of Donna’s room on occasion, poked his head in now and then. But never had this sort of invitation been extended to him.

On any other occasion a thrill of excitement or joy might have accompanied this moment. The nerves at least carried over.

He shut the door behind him with as much care as he could, but the soft  _ click _ was enough to cause her to drop his hand, casting an almost skittish look in his direction. The Doctor, who was desperately trying to keep control of his own composure, crossed to the loveseat sitting against the far wall.

But Donna could truly be contrary at times. “Oh, don’t sit over there. I’ll have to turn my neck all funny just to look at you.”

He changed course and perched on the side of her bed. “I thought the point was for you to sleep.”

“Who can sleep with you looming?” She began turning back the blankets. “And I don’t like people sitting on the covers.”

The Doctor had the thought that perhaps this was not the best idea, at least not for him, but it was what Donna wanted and thus he was powerless to do little else.

He toed off his shoes and debated a moment or two before shrugging out of his jacket. Then he climbed into the bed beside her. The TARDIS dimmed the lights on her own.

A good several inches separated them, and it was more likely his imagination was convincing him he could feel some kind of heat radiating off her. The Doctor fixed his gaze on the ceiling and focused on keeping his breath slow and even. A quick glance at Donna showed she was doing the same.

Just as he was about to ask whether this was helping or merely making it all worse, she spoke.

“If I go to sleep, I’m afraid I’ll see them and think it’s real, and then when I wake up I’ll have to lose them all over again.”

“See who?”

“Josh and Ella. My—the children that the Library made up. It’s them I really miss,” she said. “That’s not really kind to Lee, is it? I mean I do miss him, even if he wasn’t real, but I also...I don’t know what I’d do if I had found him.”

“You could always try making a go of it in real life,” he mused aloud, hoping he sounded completely neutral about the idea even though his mind was fully against it. “Might not be the same, but you never know.”

“Yeah.” It was probably his imagination that she seemed unenthusiastic. Then she rolled onto her side to look at him. “I know I said he was the perfect man for me, but I don’t know how we’d actually make it, him hardly talking and all. I think I can count on one hand the conversations we actually had. And that’s alright for a virtual reality where everything else gets filled in for you.”

“But you wouldn’t want that for actual reality?”

“Well, I’d just be talking and talking at him, and he’d probably be wishing I’d just shut it already. I mean, I’m talking your ear off right now, and anybody else would tell me to let them sleep, but it doesn’t bother you.”

“Even I know it’d be a bit hypocritical if it did,” he remarked. The Doctor didn’t need Donna’s help to realize now wasn’t the time to make this about him, however, so he rolled onto his side as well.

Somehow he forced out the words, “I’m sure if Lee were real and loved you it wouldn’t bother him, either.”

She smiled, and he couldn’t decide if that was good or not.

Donna snuggled a bit more into her pillow. “Goodnight, Spaceman.”

“Goodnight, Earthgirl.”

—-

The Doctor left long before she woke up. Not because he was uncomfortable; far from it. But that wasn’t what this was about.

He had been invited into Donna’s room and bed and confidance as a friend, purely to help her to sleep, not to let her wake up in his arms and be the first thing she saw in the morning. So he extricated himself from the tangled pile they had become somewhere in the half hour or so that he’d dozed off, picked up his jacket and shoes, and tiptoed to the door. Donna slept on.

She found him in the morning under the grating in the console room and carried with her two mugs of tea and a smile that seemed less brittle.

“Morning.”

“Morning.” The Doctor climbed out from under the grating and carefully asked, “Up for a day of running?”

She thought it over a moment. “I think so.”

—-

That night, she didn’t immediately withdraw the minute they got back to the TARDIS. He threw a little something together with noodles that probably wasn’t very good, but she ate it with a quiet, “Thanks,” anyway.

“Don’t get up,” he warned once she’d cleared her plate. He took all the dishes to the sink to wash and dry them himself.

When Donna was still sitting there after he’d finished, he didn’t have to ask. The Doctor placed his hand in hers and let her lead them back to her room.

He waited on top of the blankets while Donna shut herself in the bathroom and started the shower running. He twiddled his thumbs for about ten minutes, then leaned over and snagged a magazine off her bedside table.

When Donna emerged from the bathroom with towel-dried hair and in a set of comfy-looking pajamas, he was engrossed in an article about how proper nail care increased the human lifespan, supposedly. The Doctor didn’t look up until he realized she had stopped and was staring.

“What?”

“Haven’t you got anything to sleep in?”

He looked down at his tie and shirtsleeves. “Er, yes. Should I wear that next time?”

“I thought you’d have gotten them already.” Donna rolled her eyes and climbed into bed, so he wriggled under the blankets with her. Next time, then.

And when she laughed the next night at his pinstripe pajamas, he couldn’t find it in him to even pretend to be insulted.

—-

Donna did dream about the son and daughter she’d lost, but not in the way that she’d feared. He could tell because they weren’t happy dreams.

“No, no please! Please!”

The Doctor gathered her into his arms and stroked her hair, speaking softly in her ear.

“It’s over, Donna. You did everything you could. It’s over.”

He couldn’t tell her it was okay, not when it wasn’t. She deserved better than lies.

When Donna sagged against him, he knew he’d gotten through to her. The Doctor lowered them back down onto the bed, still wrapped up in each other.

They were all the other had. And he had to hope that would be enough.

—-

On Threnau Prime, they got kicked out of the palace for not being devout Frixops.

“You ever heard of tourists?” Donna hollered at the retreating backs of the guards. “Your economy’s loss, mate!”

She looked at him, eyes narrowing even further.

“What are you grinning about?”

The Doctor shook his head, smile only growing. “Nothing.”

Slowly but surely, he was getting his Donna back.

—-

“Do you miss her?” Donna asked out of the blue, her back to him.

“Miss who?”

“Your friend.” She was silent a beat too long, clearly debating whether to clarify. “Professor Song.”

The Doctor stared up at the ceiling, mind drawing a blank. It wasn’t that he’d forgotten River Song — how could he? — but he’d been so concerned with Donna that it had allowed him not to dwell on the woman who’d died for a him that didn’t exist yet.

“I don’t know,” he finally said. “It’s hard to know what to miss.” His head fell to the side, resting on his pillow to stare at the back of her head. He wasn’t sure what Donna had made of his response with her not facing him. He wasn’t sure when it had become his pillow, either. “Why do you ask?”

Her shoulders were tense, that much he could tell, almost up to her ears. “I don’t know. I just thought, you’ve let me go on about what I lost in the Library. I wanted to check on you.”

The Doctor shook his head. “You don’t have to repay your time, Donna. They’re two different things.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Yours is real.”

He pushed himself up on an elbow. “Alright, what’s really bothering you?”

The little he could make out of Donna’s face now was flushed, though the exact shade he couldn’t say in the dark. “What?”

“Professor Song. Something about it is bothering you that you’re not saying.”

Maybe he was just hoping for an ulterior motive, but he couldn’t shake the thought now.

“It’s not—I’m not  _ bothered _ ,” she huffed. “I’m just saying if you miss her, I...don’t think I’m supposed to be around the next time.” She picked at a thread sticking out of her pillowcase and continued not to look at him. “So it’s okay if you want that to happen sooner. You don’t have to keep me around.”

The Doctor was completely still. He hadn’t even considered that Donna might think him eager to move onto whatever that adventure was. Certainly, he had some curiosity, but it was sobered by the reality of where it would end for River.

And if it meant giving up Donna, he wasn’t in any hurry to get there at all. Possibly ever.

The Doctor threw his arms around her and hooked his chin over her shoulder. Donna kicked her legs a couple times with a startled squawk.

“Hands!”

Just this once, he ignored her. “Donna, that could be years or centuries away. And I am perfectly content to wait.”

She peered back at him, searching for some hint of a lie. “Really?”

“Won’t even notice the time go by, long as I’ve got you around.”

Her gaze softened. “Daft. Daft Spaceman.” She turned her face away again, though this time he suspected it was to hide a smile.

He dared to snuggle a little closer. “But pretty, though, right?”

“Go to sleep.” Her arms came up, hugging his to her.

The Doctor closed his eyes with a smile of his own he didn’t bother to hide. “Yes, Madame.”

—-

They found themselves at an inn one night. There wasn’t much to be done until the Erinnian ship arrived tomorrow, and Donna had decided it was too far to make the trek all the way back to the TARDIS.

The Doctor trailed a step behind her as she marched up to the desk.

“Hi,” Donna greeted the hostess, who looked up and offered them a smile.

“Hello. May I help you and your husband—”

They didn’t let the poor woman finish.

“Oh, we’re not married.”

“Definitely not married.”

The hostess was clearly well-trained, for she merely gave a pleasant, “My mistake. Were you interested in booking two rooms, then?”

The Doctor and Donna looked at each other.

“Oh.” He scrubbed at one cheek without quite meeting the hostess’ eyes. “Well, one room would be fine.”

“Probably cheaper,” Donna added with a nervous laugh.

“A twin room?”

Another look was exchanged.

“Um—”

“Well—”

“Or we do have a double room available,” she added. If he wasn’t mistaken, there was the slightest amused smile playing at the corner of her mouth.

“That’d be lovely, thanks,” the Doctor squeaked out.

The hostess passed over the key and told them the room number, though he was just happy to let Donna accept it and follow her hasty retreat out of the main room.

“So maybe next time, we just let them think whatever they want to think,” said Donna, fiddling with the key as they climbed the steps. “I mean, if they’re gonna think it anyway.”

“Sounds reasonable,” the Doctor agreed.

“Yeah,” she said, the funniest sort of quirk to her lips, like she couldn’t make up her mind whether to smile or frown. “Yeah, it does, doesn’t it?”

—-

He held her some nights and wondered if he made a suitable substitute or if Donna was merely making do. Did she pretend it was a broader chest at her back, bigger arms that held her?

Sometimes he’d catch her murmuring in her sleep unintelligible things, or she’d roll to face him and nuzzle her way under his chin. His hearts would constrict and a lump would rise in his throat. It wasn’t real, no matter how much he longed for it to be.

Inevitably she was going to say a name, and he knew it wouldn’t be his. It couldn’t be.

What the Doctor didn’t know was what he would do when that happened.

—-

They stopped off in Chiswick for a visit. Really, he should have brought Donna here immediately after the Library, but he’d been selfish and worried that she’d choose to remain with her family while the memories of he virtual one were so fresh.

Of course, if he’d known how intolerable Sylvia was going to be, he might have just kept on avoiding the place altogether.

“And how do you even support yourselves? You can’t have jobs, in and out the way you are.”

Technically, it was none of his business, even if the conversation was half about him. Donna and her mother were out in the kitchen and having a supposedly private talk, though he was pretty sure even Wilfred could hear judging by the man’s nervous fidgeting as they sat across from each other in the sitting room.

“Obviously, you’re still eating.”

“Actually lost half a stone since the last time we dropped by,” said Donna, and while he was glad she was standing up for herself, it pained his hearts that she was still looking for her mother’s approval.

“Hm, and I suppose that makes up for the rest of it.”

“What do you mean, the rest of it?”

“The unemployment, the lack of a proper roof over your head. I mean, how’s any of that going to look on your CV?”

“Sorry, is this a job interview? Where do I see myself in the next five years?”

“Donna—”

“Because I can tell you, it’s right where I am now!”

Wilf gave up any pretense of not being able to hear, cracking a smile and remarking to him, “That’s not bad, eh? She’s got plans for you.”

“For God’s sake, Donna, you’re almost  _ forty _ !” Sylvia hissed like it was a dirty word. “You’ve got to be thinking about your future. A job, or a husband with a steady one, children!” 

Sylvia had crossed a line. She didn’t know it, but she had. The Doctor stood and marched straight for the kitchen archway.

“And who says I want any of that?” Donna shouted just as he made it there. Whatever he’d been intending to say flew right out of his head as she turned and caught sight of him. She froze just as he had.

There was a long silence not even Sylvia seemed to know how to interrupt.

Faintly, the Doctor heard himself ask, “You...don’t?”

Donna slowly shook her head. Then, as if that hadn’t been enough, she spoke. “I’ve already got what I want.”

He had to be dreaming. Any minute he’d wake up with Donna’s breath on the back of his neck or her cold toes pressed to his calf — which sounded like a dream itself and therefore wasn’t at all helpful.

They made a quick exit from the Noble house after that, most of which was a blur in his mind. He couldn’t focus on much else except that Donna was happy just as she was and wasn’t looking to leave for anyone anytime soon.

“I mean, it’s not that I don’t ever want children or anything,” she confessed later that night. They were each on their separate ends of the bed like the first time. “I still miss Josh and Ella. And Lee. I suppose part of me always will. But I wouldn’t want to go back to that life.”

“No?”

She shook her head again. “I couldn’t. Cos that’d mean, well, the Library made me forget things. Mostly everything I’d been doing up till then, so I wouldn’t realize it was all fake. And probably so I wouldn’t want to go.”

“It made you forget the traveling?”

She didn’t answer for a long time. “Sometimes I’m scared if I fall asleep, I’ll really be in that world, and I won’t know how to get out. And everything I’ve seen and done out there’ll be gone, and you—” She stopped, too choked up to go on.

The Doctor only had to reach out with one hand before she was moving into his embrace.

“Hey, I’ve got you. It’s okay.”

He didn’t see anything wrong in saying it this time. It wasn’t a lie.

—-

One morning, he made a mistake. He stayed.

He hadn’t meant to. But he’d been waiting longer and longer to depart as the nights had gone on and it grew harder to leave her. Donna slept straight through most nights with no problem now, but he simply relished the feeling of her in his arms, red, red hair falling onto his shoulder.

It didn’t quite register when she blinked her eyes open. Only when her voice, still a little groggy, mumbled a, “Morning,” up at him did he realize with a start.

“Oh!” The Doctor’s eyes darted guiltily to the door he should have been through hours ago. “Uh, sorry.”

“What for?” She had to still be fogged up with sleep, that was the only reason she’d be watching him so calmly.

“Well, um, you probably want a minute, if you’re waking up,” he stammered. Donna usually didn’t emerge from her room until she’d at least combed her hair back from her face and found a robe to put on over her nightclothes.

She hummed a sort of acknowledgement to that, then let her eyes fall closed again. “Five more minutes, then.”

It didn’t seem to be a dismissal.

“Oh. Okay.”

Maybe this was real. Maybe Donna wanted to wake up to him in the morning just the same as he wanted to wake up to her. Maybe that was enough.

They were alright.

Hearts hammering loud enough that Donna had to be hearing them with her head resting on his chest, the Doctor dropped his head back onto his pillow and counted down from five minutes.

And then, since it wasn’t hurting anything, another five minutes more.


End file.
